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Are We Protecting the Ocean Fast Enough? · How To Protect The Ocean

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  There has been an active campaign over this past decade in the 2020s, the
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  Ocean Decade, to protect 30% of land and ocean by 2030, the 30 by 30 campaign.
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  You've probably heard this a lot.
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  You've probably heard this said.
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  Some of you know what it is, especially if you've been listening to this podcast.
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  Some of you haven't known what it was because you haven't been
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  listening to this podcast, or you're just not knowing, and that's fine.
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  Even if you've listened to this podcast and you haven't heard
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  me talk about it, that's okay.
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  I do have a lot of episodes out, and I completely understand.
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  But today we're gonna be talking about the effectiveness so far,
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  in 2026, of this campaign to increase the amount of percentage,
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  amount of area that is protected in the ocean and on land by 2030.
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  We are at an astonishing number compared to what we were at in the 2010s, and
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  it's something to celebrate, even though we still have a lot of work to do.
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  So we're gonna talk about that on today's episode.
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  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, where you are getting updates
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  on your ocean news every weekday.
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  If you enjoy this type of content, you're new here, and you haven't followed the
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  podcast yet, please follow, whether you're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music.
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  that, 'cause the charts on each of those podcast apps go up when you follow, and
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  more people get to know about what we are doing here on the podcast and here
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  for the ocean, and the resources out there to learn more about the ocean.
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  And also, not just look at my podcast.
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  Go out and look at other people's podcasts about the ocean, 'cause they
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  have some phenomenal ones out there.
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  Highly recommend that you check those out as well and just get knee-deep
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  into the ocean, like knee-deep, like, you know, waist-high deep.
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  Anyway, uh, or even under it.
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  Get in there.
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  Get to know all of them.
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  It'd be awesome.
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  But hey, look, this is what we do at the podcast.
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  We talk about some of the optimism, some of the progress that we've made,
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  and we have made progress in global protection of the ocean in terms of area.
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  I'll put the caveats in after.
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  But we have actually reached 10% of the world's oceans that have
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  been protected, like effectively.
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  That is huge.
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  Is it enough?
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  No.
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  We need to get to 30% by 2030.
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  We have four years to do that.
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  However, it is ramping up.
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  And where we were a decade ago, in 2016, we were not even close.
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  We were at less than 1% of the world's oceans that were protected.
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  Now we are at 10%.
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  And if you think about how big the ocean is, that's a pretty big value.
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  That's a huge, huge value in terms of protection.
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  And look, I've talked about 30 by 30.
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  I've had criticisms about 30 by 30 because there's a
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  lot of stuff that goes in.
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  Like, what is a marine protected area?
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  A marine protected area is an area in the ocean that essentially is off limits
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  to ideally fishing, ideally like mining, drilling for oil and gas, all these types
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  of extractive activities, even sometimes to people like scientists and everybody,
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  'cause they're full on reserve, because they want the fish and they want the
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  biodiversity in there to recoup, so either for fisheries or biodiversity.
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  And when you do that, these areas are, they go through a process.
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  Like, man, the process it goes through, that could last a decade long just to
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  get designated, and then it has to get funded so it can continue to go and work
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  and be enforced and everything like that.
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  There's a process to go to make sure that this marine protected area, this
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  area that we wanna protect, is the ultimate area that we wanna protect, and
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  for specific reasons, whether it's like local communities can get access to it,
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  or fishing communities can get access to it at certain times of the year,
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  or they will benefit from the spillover effect of larger fish and more fish
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  that come out of a specific species, or it's protecting a habitat that allows
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  that particular species for fisheries to do really well when it's undisturbed.
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  So there's a lot of things that go on with marine protected areas, and
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  we need to have more of the ocean dedicated to protected areas, so we need
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  to increase it by 20% to get to 30%.
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  But the fact that we got to 10% is a huge win because, like I said, it
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  takes so long to protect an ocean, especially when you're looking at
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  areas, and we're gonna see more with the high seas, but areas where they're
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  not necessarily managed by one nation.
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  Anything within the 200 nautical mile zone from coastline is usually
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  the national waters of that country.
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  So Canada has a 200 nautical mile along its longest coastline in the world.
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  And so nobody can kind of impede on that.
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  No other nation can impede on that, and Canada has its decision-making powers
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  over that area underneath that surface.
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  And so that's an important aspect to think.
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  But there are areas like Antarctica that are managed by like 24,
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  I think 24 different nations.
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  So you need to get 24 different nations to agree on something to
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  put in a marine protected area like the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area.
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  Now, that took a while to get in because we wanted to make sure that all the
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  countries were on board for this, because there was two, Russia and China, that
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  were not on board for quite some time.
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  But they eventually came to the table and said, "Hey, you know what? We
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  want this to happen." There are other marine protected areas in Antarctica
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  that have to go through and have been up for being designated every year.
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  They haven't gone through yet.
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  Hopefully, one day those will go through.
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  When?
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  I don't know.
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  But hopefully we get closer and closer to that.
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  It's a lot because what we're asking people to do is take some of the most
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  productive waters in the world and not fish in them or not do any kind
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  of extractive activities in them.
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  And then there's a lot of people who can benefit from having those extractive
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  activities in the temporary moment.
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  Because the reason why those areas are protected because if you fish all of it
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  or you destroy the habitats that allow the fish to grow in it, then you are
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  effectively dooming that area that was so productive before and giving you lots
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  of fish and giving lots of biodiversity and stability so that fish and other
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  animals can do well in those areas.
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  You can attract sea turtles and whales and dolphins and sharks and all these
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  kind of animals that really stabilize an ecosystem that we know as the ocean.
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  And so, uh, not having marine protected areas is not beneficial.
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  Having those marine protected areas has proven to work and increase the biomass
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  and abundance of fish, especially of commercially important fisheries, as
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  well as other fish that are not even used in fisheries, but it stabilizes
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  the biodiversity within that area
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  So, there's a lot, and I've talked about the enforcement and everything
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  like that, but the fact that we were able to get 10% is wonderful.
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  Now, one of the things that I've talked to Angelo Villa Gomez, who's like a
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  brother from another mother for me in the marine conservation world, we have
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  a podcast together that we do live every Thursday, mostly every Thursday, depending
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  on when we're busy or we're away.
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  But it's called Polar Bears in Flip-Flops, so check it out on YouTube.
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  We had a conversation recently on our last episode about the fact that coastal
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  MPAs, like really close to the coast, are needed for kelp areas and for reef areas
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  and for seagrass areas and mangrove areas.
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  But they're not gonna be that big because they're small coastal areas.
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  There might be many of them, but there may not be one of these massive, massive,
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  like biggest MPA in the world, if you've seen any of those announcements.
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  These are gonna be smaller, and they might be connected biologically, and
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  so there might be like a network of them, but they're gonna be smaller.
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  And does that, we were having like this conversation, was like, does that
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  contribute to the MPAs for the 2030?
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  But it won't increase it by a lot.
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  It may increase it by less than 0.1%, depending on the area of these
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  and how fast they're gonna go in.
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  But are they still needed?
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  Because yes, I think that's the one thing that 30 by 30 ignores, and one
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  of the things that 30 by 30 doesn't take into account is these smaller MPAs
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  that are MPAs for habitats that have huge implications for biodiversity,
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  abundance of fisheries and other important species that will scale into
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  other areas outside of that habitat when they're protected properly.
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  Looking at these small MPAs are extremely important.
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  It's gonna require a lot of local leaders and local heroes
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  that will be able to do that.
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  But those are where it's really gonna count as well, because these coastal
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  areas is what keeps all this biodiversity and all this fisheries, 'cause
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  eventually, with a lot of oceans, they have different larval stages, and they
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  have to be protected in these seagrass areas, mangroves, kelp beds and all
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  that kind of stuff, and salt marshes and everything, where they can actually
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  be built and they can scale in terms of abundance and stuff and just go out
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  into the ocean and keep it productive, keep it stable in wherever they end up.
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  And I think that's an important aspect.
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  But it won't necessarily generate a lot of percentage for the 30 x 30
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  because they're looking for big areas.
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  Now, I know at the beginning of the episode, I said, "Look, we're
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  less than four years away from 2030, and we're only at ten percent.
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  We have twenty percent to go." My prediction is we're gonna see a push
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  over these next three and a half years or so, and we are gonna see a lot
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  more bigger MPAs go through because countries wanna meet that biodiversity
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  target of 30x30, that protection target, which I think is great.
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  My one concern about that, obviously, I have a lot of concerns, but one
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  of my concerns is the fact that, hey, what if they aren't looking
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  at what needs to be protected?
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  If a lot of these places need five years or 10 years to be designated properly when
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  you're including all the rights holders and stakeholders together, how are we
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  gonna do that in three and a half years?
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  Are they gonna be effective, or are they just gonna end up being paper parks?
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  That's the risk we run.
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  But also from another standpoint, it's like, hey, if we can get them up
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  there, we can build on them later on.
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  So my prediction is we're gonna see a push in area that's gonna get protected.
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  Are we gonna meet the thirty percent?
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  I don't know.
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  We might.
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  But I hope so.
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  But it also depends on the quality of those thirty percent.
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  But I'd love to hear what you think about it.
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  You can join my Patreon, www.speakupforblue.com/patreon.
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  You can join that.
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  You can also get free versions of the episode.
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  We have one where it's just the solo episodes, one where it is
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  just the interviews that we do.
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  It'll be like a Patreon feed that comes through.
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  Those are free to join.
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  And if you wanna join me where we meet once a month and we discuss ocean
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  topics, you can join the community.
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  I'll be posting stuff in there.
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  We join the community, and we can have a lot of conversations about
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  the ocean, which I'm super pumped up.
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  That's speakupforblue.com/patreon.
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  If you wanna contact me otherwise, my socials are in the show notes.
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  And this has been another wonderful episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I am your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.